Ultimate ADOM Early Access Update #5 (v.0.7.5) has been released!
Hear ye! Hear ye! Adventurers! Today we have released update #5 for thy Ultimate ADOM Early Access!
New content:
The first new playable race since the Alpha is out now!
War drums echo in the hidden valleys and caves of the Drakalor Chain.
The orcs are coming, and every now and then, one submits to the political parties that plague Ancardia.
Our prefix and suffix system are now in play for all melee weapons. This roughly equates to over 200 million new weapons to find and experiment with.
33 magical rings have been activated and are now fully functional.
You finally have a reason to graft additional fingers now.
15 new monsters have been added, including entirely new abilites.
New abilities monsters can use are:
summoning support troops
teleportation
teleportation control
breath attacks (which may also damage equipment)
self-duplicating monsters, burrowing and dissolving items on the ground.
Beware of gelatinous cubes! You can graft several bodyparts granting you some of these abilities.
There is a sulfurous smell in the air, and a tingle of gold.
The Dragon’s Lair now welcomes treasure-seekers. For a certain value of “welcomes”. Did we mention we have monsters with breath attacks now? Yes, we did.
New custom characters will now have a wider array of starting equipment, also based on their race.
Ant Colonies and Beehives are back! - The feared ant colonies have made it into Ultimate ADOM, as have beehives.
Destroy those nests quickly or flee from the horde of monsters these will spawn over time.
Your chosen faction or patron will now take a much more active interest in what you are doing in the Caverns of Chaos and may reward you for performing the things they desire you to do.
All runes now have descriptions and no longer require you to guess what they are doing when attaching to armor or weapon.
One new trap type added.
There is one blasphemous creature in the dungeon not believing in non-diagonal movement. You may acquire its powers if you really want to, though it comes at a price.
User Interface & Controls:
The game now allows you to change the input mapping and to remap keys and gamepad buttons very easily.
You can also change the JSON file in the Ultimate ADOM installation direction with the input mapping directly if you absolutely desire. Please only do so if you know what you’re doing, else you may need to reinstall the game.
Tooltips are now a lot less messy and follow a much clearer information hierarchy.
Monster tooltips now provide a much clearer overview about the core monster abilities.
Weapon tooltips now very clearly put weapon damage capabilities to the forefront.
Armor tooltips focus on protective capabilities (primarily) and evasive capabilities secondarily.
Rune slots on items are visualized much more clearly.
The raw power of weapons and protective items is now calculated by the game, disregarding any special abilities you might find interesting. You will now receive a hint (both visually and in the tooltip) if you find an item potentially more powerful than your current equipment.
Dragging items from the backpack to a slot with an equipped item now exchanges the items immediately. This now also works when dragging items to your equipment directly from the ground.
You can now click on an item in your backpack to equip it without specifying a target slot. This will replace the currently equipped armor or the potentially least useful weapon or shield you have equipped. You can, of course, (and probably should) still drag things to the slots you want to replace just to make sure the right items get swapped. But you do not have to.
To prevent accidental deaths or waste of resources, particularly dangerous or harmless monsters now indicate their power with colored symbols.
New context menus allow you to equip items from the backpack or from the ground.
Miscellaneous:
The worm tunnels should now only challenge your skills, not your computer. Major performance updates regarding this area.
Some general performance improvements related to processing bodypart capabilities.
Monsters trying to kill you will now behave in a smarter way than before.
Important bug fixes:
A deep architecture change caused an unexpected side effect preventing grafted body parts from working properly. This has been fixed, and now additional arms, fingers etc will work again. Thanks, Grond for finding that one!
Hands are now again part of freshly grafted arms.
Power point reduction skills will reduce the cost of power points once more.
Corpses should no longer randomly spawn without body parts to butcher.
If you voluntarily stop stealth and then restart it, your stealth point pool is fully regenerated.
You can no longer animate chaos rune ground features.
Many additional minor bug fixes and stability improvements.
Internationalization:
We are currently working on German, French, Spanish and Simplified Chinese to be in the game soon. This required a lot of internal changes and improvements for correct grammar handling.
The one effect you will notice is that monster names, professions and races are now correctly gendered.
Known issues:
Due to a bug in the Unity framework, you might not be able to use the Shift-key for key combinations on Linux.
This only affects Linux users, and will hopefully be fixed in the next Unity update.
The Easter Orcs are coming – and they bring even more surprises!
Hear ye, Adventurers! A massive patch is hitting our Early Access next week, just in time for the Easter weekend. Here are a few highlights you can expect:
The orcs are coming!
This powerful war-like race becomes playable as you venture into the mysterious caves of the Drakalor Chain for the glory of your faction.
Dozens of new monsters and dungeon features!
The mostly feared ant colonies are back, as are beehives! Additionally, some monsters will have interesting special abilities, such as teleportation, breath attacks or burrowing, and their limbs may grant you their special abilities if grafted to your body.
Quests!
To start with, at least. The major quest update is planned for the end of the Early Access, but your factions will give you guidance of what they expect you to do in the Caverns of Chaos and reward you for completing those steps.
Remapping key- and gamepad controls!
You also will be able to remap keys and gamepad controls as you wish, something that many players have requested.
And many, many more surprises, bug fixes and improvements!
Stay tuned for the full changelog hitting next week!
Ultimate ADOM Early Access Update #4 (v.0.7.4)
Adventurers! We are happy to be able to release Ultimate ADOM 0.7.4.!
Important Notice:
Please note that save games are not yet backwards compatible. If you want to continue playing an older save game, you need to play an older version of Ultimate ADOM on Steam.
Content:
The tutorial has been completely overhauled.
Learn about grafting, stealth and coating your weapons with potions!
Additionally, it has become a mini game of its own, worthy of Grond and Adam.
Enjoy learning all about dying in rogue-like games!
The earlier stages of Literacy are now also worthwhile to invest, as you can actually read scrolls now, even if there are not so many of them, yet.
UI:
Skill management is much more manageable now.
Now you can read the full skill description by selecting the skill with a single mouse click and learn a skill by using double click.
Controls:
Sections and selections (used for keyboard/gamepad control) keep their old state when the UI is refreshed. This improves the handling of the skill management and inventory (and other elements).
You have more options to pick up things via keyboard now:
The <,> key now always picks up all items on the ground, although it stops before reaching a crushing encumbrance level.
+ <,> now always opens the inventory with the "ground" section selected to pick up specific items more efficiently.
Miscellaneous improvements:
Lava now continuously burns, instead of just burning once, when pushing things into it.
Bugs:
More items can be used now.
The straw test dummy can no longer bleed.
Animated beings float correctly again now, instead of being either in the ceiling or in the ground.
Several tool tips are displayed correctly and immediately now.
Ultimate ADOM Early Access Community-Feedback Update (0.7.3) released!
Adventurers! We are happy to be able to release Ultimate ADOM 0.7.3.!
Please note that save games are not yet backwards compatible. If you want to continue playing an older save game, you need to play an older version of Ultimate ADOM on Steam.
The most important changes:
Powerful artifacts have made it into the hands of dungeon denizens! Starting at level 3, watch out for powerful enemies you might be better off avoiding, though the items they carry might be worth the risk.
Food will now heal you slightly, if consumed.
Lots of new keyboard commands: 'v' to cast a spell, 1 to 0 to directly use the hotbar and single items are now picked up without opening the inventory. And there's even more though!
Resting until healing, and resting until power recharge.
Better controller support.
Many UI changes, like e.g. a permanently open game log, which you can toggle in the options.
Some balancing changes, e.g. tuning down some weapon skills, which were scaling too much damage.
And much more! See the full release notes below!
Have fun - we are looking forward to your continuing feedback!
Please find below the detailed change notes:
Enhancements:
Content:
The caverns just got a lot more deadly. Starting at dungeon level 3, you may encounter powerful mini boss monsters carrying unique artifacts with them. Don't forget that avoiding powerful enemies is a valid response! Defeating these creatures will tax your mastery of your skills.
Food no longer is useless. While Hunger and the full Food system (including the beloved feasting on enemy corpses to gain new abilities) will not make it into the game before March, you no longer have to rely on harvesting food items for them to benefit you. Consuming food will now provide a small health boost.
Keyboard controls:
Now, you can cast spells directly via 'v' verbalising them without going through the action menu.
Healing until rested (or interupted) is now available by holding 'Shift' and either or <5> on the Numpad. Like auto-exploring, you can stop this at any time by pressing a key, clicking the mouse or the gamepad.
If you hold 'Shift' and 'v', your character will rest until interrupted, or when at full Power for more spellcasting.
In addition to using or <5> on the numpad to wait a turn, you can now also use '.' as used by other rogue-likes.
If you press ',' to pick up items and a single item is lying on the ground it is directly picked up without having to open the inventory.
The entries in the toolbar can now be activated with the hotkeys '1' to '0’.
Gamepad controls:
The repeat delay and repeat rate can now be configured separately from the keyboard settings. By our experience, the new defaults were slightly too fast for controllers.
You can now pick up items with the button.
The dead zones for some gamepad axis are now increased which should prevent getting erroneous input from other input devices that use the same axis (e.g. HOTAS setups).
Tooltips:
Item weight no longer is shown in the item tooltips, because our current inventory system is slot-based instead of weight-based right now.
UI:
The game log is shown all the time now. You can change this in the settings or simply change the transparency.
Certain panels should no longer look weird on very wide displays.
Now, the game is allowed to render in the background (on Windows), making it a true “borderless window”. E.g. if you press Alt+Tab, the start menu will open now on top of the game window, instead of minimizing it.
The saved games list displays now, which saved games are compatible with the current game version and which ones are not.
The default speed for animations has been reduced back again to saner levels. You can still change it to whatever speed you prefer. You (speed-)monster.
Balancing:
Weapon skills have been toned down, as they scaled the possible damage up way too far.
Dworjalf is no longer the one-man-army-dwarf he used to be. He will deal slightly less damage with his axes, and will take slightly more damage now.
Tisseth is now skilled in using the quarterstaff she starts with. She lost all interest in archery.
Misc:
Now, we create a backup of a saved game before it will be overwritten. There is no automatic recovery, yet.
You will find more armor and weapons from different materials, especially as you venture deeper into the caves.
Slain monsters will take expensive items with them upon their deaths much less often.
Size no longer matters. You can now wear any armor and wield any weapon you find.
Fixes
Important Fixes:
Fixed the spell buff skills for increased range and damage. Most did not quite work out as we expected.
Items on the ground are now shown correctly after loading a game.
The “low hitpoints” warning border is restored correctly now, after loading a game.
Encumbrance always is now correctly updated, when you pick up or drop items in the inventory screen.
Tooltips in the inventory screen are now always correctly updated, when equipment changes.
Items lying at your position are now shown directly after loading a game.
A lot of fixes entering new maps.
And lots of minor bug-fixing and fine-tuning.
State of the Early Access
Thomas Biskup, the man behind ADOM, has recently adressed your feedback and gave some insights into the current state of the Early Access. Feel free having a look, if you have not already: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1266820/view/3023575557497021344
Early Access Roadmap
Ultimate ADOM: State of the Game
Fellow adventurers,
First and foremost, with the most recent update we added Load & Save function as well as the ability to adjust the animations speed and fixed a couple of other bugs. Full Changelog here
Today, we would like to address your comments about the state of the Early Access content-wise, including our plans for future updates.
We have a long road ahead of us and being in Early Access brings its own challenges with it. We are fully aware that our game lacks certain features that one might expect at Early Access start. Surely, this can be partly attributed to us working much longer than anticipated on the Load & Save feature as stated in our first statement.
But there’s more to the story. We went into Early Access, knowingly that the game was missing certain features. Our goal was and will always be to include the community as closely as possible to the development of the title. This has proven to be a great success for ADOM and we are certain, in the long run, this will also prove to be true for Ultimate ADOM.
You may think “So, why not wait a couple of months?”
This time, we don’t want to be in a situation, where people ask for features and we can’t add them anymore, because the games code prohibits it at one point. For example, in the original ADOM we would have loved to add more features, but since the code is in parts very confusing and prone to bugs and errors, we thought we do it right from the get-go this time. This means involving the community as early as possible and presenting a development roadmap, so we stay more flexible when it comes to feedback. We really want to encourage you to share your feedback with us, we are listening on Steam, on the forums, on social media, everywhere! So please keep it coming.
Additionally we spent a long time – longer than anticipated – to develop a “fantasy physics engine” that will allow us to rather easily add features rarely if ever seen in most roguelikes: animating anything in the world and imbibing it with life based on its physical properties is one such example, being able to graft body-parts to gain special powers bestowed by the body of the original monster is another one and we don’t just want to stop there. Being able to combine these things (e.g. animating a plate armor as a living construct, attaching orc arms wielding axes to it and sending it onto a rampage after coating it with poison) will create unique moments for the player. Not to mention the more mundane stuff like being able to burn any wooden thing, freeze liquids or have things float down a river. And that’s just the start. Now that the basics are in place, we will focus on adding more content. Experience with ADOM taught us that you, the community probably is going to have a ton of wild and crazy ideas we’d never be able to come up with. That’s what we are looking for.
Finally, we decided to try a new user interface approach. We strongly believe that roguelike games should not be confined to a niche. But classical roguelikes utilize convoluted UIs and are very hard to “get” for mainstream gamers. So, we decided to deviate from my established roguelike standards in order to widen our audience and the attention for roguelikes in general. We knew that the hardcore fans of ADOM initially probably would disagree with some of our more aggressive changes (diagonal movement, I hear you) but we still believe that the combination of a number of features (four-way movement, automatic detection of secret doors, 90% transparency regarding monster and item stats, etc.) deserve to be tested in-depth. As well as a user interface that really tries to work for keyboard, mouse and controller – or any combination thereof. Such an endeavor requires constant feedback. And that’s yet another reason why we didn’t want to start in a much more complete state: Late changes cost a lot more time and money than changes based on early feedback.
We understand that the initial lack of content might feel underwhelming. The underlying game engine now is in a state that allows for very quick progress and creative ideas delivered by the community are one of our great motivators. Rest assured, you can expect more content, more bug fixes and more quality-of-life improvements within the next couple of days and weeks, as we work tirelessly to deliver an ADOM worthy experience.
Thank you for your support and patience so far.
Thomas Biskup (Ultimate) ADOM Maintainer
Ultimate ADOM Early Access Save/Load-Update (v.0.7.2) has been released!
Adventurers! We are happy to be able to release Ultimate ADOM 0.7.2. The most important feature is the fully integrated load & save feature that was missing from the initial release due to complications, which we have explained in detail here: https://www.ultimate-adom.com/index.php/2021/02/19/ultimate-adom-load-save-clarification/
Please be aware: With this latest update, you can load and save your game at any time and continue later on. But please keep in mind that you are playing a roguelike game: When you die your save game will be deleted. Death is final. Unless you decide to cheat. Which the gods and the random number generator probably will take revenge for at some point.
Community Feedback: Game was received being too slow.
Even more great news, as there is one additional big enhancement addressing the feedback we have received so far: People perceived the game as sluggish and too slow. Some even voiced concerns that the complexity of the engine will prevent the game from ever being fast. Therefore:
We have changed animation speed to now have faster animations
Further on, you can configure the setting yourself with a new slider in the Settings menu.
Combat now is a lot faster and I think we might have overdone it because you can barely see the animations and the characters just seem to twitch. With said slider you can adjust this to your preference, and we will try to find the right middle ground during this week.
That does not mean we won’t optimize performance a lot more in the months to come. But we wanted to assure you that there is no fundamental problem with the engine. Therefore, enjoy the blazing new speed and let us know what you think about that, too!
Below you can find a list of additional fixes in this update:
The keypad can be used now for movement and selection input, too.
The action button flash can now be turned off in the settings.
A problem with tunnel connections on maps has been fixed.
A variety of minor bug fixes and fine tuning has been done during the weekend in addition.
What comes next?
At the end of this week, we hope to release Update #3, addressing many of the bugs reported plus various quality of life improvements. Afterwards follow-up updates will focus on adding more content, bug fixes and a continuing stream of UI enhancements based on community feedback. Additionally, we welcome all suggestions for things you would like to see (besides content you can expect at any rate like more magical items, artifacts and so on).
In case you have missed it - Our Early Access Roadmap
See you soon with the next update.
Thomas Biskup (Ultimate) ADOM Maintainer
Ultimate ADOM: Loading & Saving
Load & Save is coming soon. If we hadn’t stumbled upon a serious internal bug it would have been part of the EA release. We are working on it and expect to provide ASAP.
So what happened? Why are we going to EA without such an important feature, knowing full well people usually don't like leaving their computers running for hours?
It's quite simple: It's entirely our fault. The first is that we've been overly optimistic about our ability to get Saving and Loading into the game in a way that works instead of most often placing you into a mirror universe of the one you left when saving, where things roughly look the same but don't, and bugs will murder, corrupt and crash you, and not in a good way. In short: The solution we thought would work didn't quite, and we feel that the frustration of trying to load a game that would then crash around you would have been much higher than not being able to save and load at all.
Ultimate ADOM: Caverns of Chaos is still an Early Access game, and as such there are some core features missing. We have recently published a roadmap where we outline where the next big features such as Hunger and Corruption (in April), better combat options and AI (in June) or enemy spellcasters (in August) will make it into the game.
Your feedback, both positive and negative, is very valuable to us and very welcome.
In the next few days, we are focusing nearly exclusively to getting Saving and Loading into the game in a way that works for everyone. Thank you for your patience!
Here's a technical explanation for those of you in the know or with the interest about what went wrong with our initial estimate.
Ultimate ADOM Early Access Bugfix-Update #1 (v.0.7.1) has been released!
Adventurers!
The first Bugfix-Update for Ultimate ADOM is already available!
Enhancements:
The skills in the Scavenger skill tree did not work properly. Now you can find even more loot.
Claw bugs are slightly more common now.
Monsters carrying loot now always carry their loot in their backpack. Therefore, they need to have a backpack for loot. This means no more owlbears with helmets!
Fixes:
Removed “time-modifier” debug option which frees the F12 key for Steam screenshots.
Chat diary entries can now be opened from the main menu if no game was started before.
The jumping range was unlimited and you could lock up the game by jumping into non-visible areas.
Some layout issues with long high score description texts were solved.
Fixed some priest spell issues in ASCII mode.
Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos Now Available in Early Access on Steam!
Together with developer Team ADOM we are excited to welcome players back to the world of Ancardia with Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos, available today for Windows PC, MacOS, and Linux via Steam Early Access, with a launch discount of 15%!
A sequel 25 years in the making, Ultimate ADOM takes everything players love about traditional roguelikes — procedurally developed levels, random enemy encounters, tons of skills, and a ridiculous amount of build varieties and playstyles — but with modern sensibilities like multiple graphics options, intuitive controls, and a slick presentation.
The original ADOM was a groundbreaking title that set the standard for dungeon crawler roguelike games, and Caverns of Chaos is bringing those ideas to the 21st century with a host of awesome new features that take advantage of modern hardware. In this latest trailer, the man behind it all, Thomas Biskup, details the Early Access launch and shines a light on the 25-year history behind the ADOM series.
Watch the Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos release trailer on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoC_kGe4IaQ
Watch the Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos developer featurette trailer on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldOFUz3CY6E
Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos is now available on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam for with a launch discount of 15%.
Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos Save The World Edition available!
We are also offering a “Save the World” Edition for Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos that contains bonus wallpapers and the original soundtrack! In keeping with the game’s theme of battling corruption, for every “Save the World Edition" sold, Assemble will donate 10% of the proceeds to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
“We’re really excited to bring players back to the world of ADOM,” said Assemble Entertainment CEO Stefan Marcinek. “The genre has seen a bit of a renaissance over the last few years and we’re very proud to help Team ADOM bring this highly anticipated sequel to life and share it with a whole new generation of players.”
“We’re all extremely excited to welcome players new and old back to the world of ADOM,” said Thomas Biskup, Creator of ADOM. “We know what players loved about the original title in 1994 but also what players are looking for from their games in 2021. Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos is the perfect blend of tried and tested mechanics and the quality and depth of contemporary titles.”
Ultimate ADOM Early Access Roadmap available!
Click the banner below to have a look into the Early Access Roadmap.
About Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos
Since the events of the first game, the big bad known as Andor Drakon has been seemingly vanquished and Ancardia is still struggling with the cataclysmic aftermath of Andor’s defeat. Unfortunately, power abhors a vacuum, and seven factions are now scrambling to be the new top dog. While they bicker with each other, however, a new evil begins to stir below the surface. It’s up to you to head down into the aptly named Caverns of Chaos to investigate these ominous rumblings and keep things from getting out of hand. Dust off your spellbook, grab your favorite cloak, and maybe graft a new arm to your body so you can hold another weapon — you’re going to need it.
Key Features of Ultimate ADOM Include
Every Run is Different — Thanks to a staggering variety of skills, spells, classes, and factions, players can enjoy the challenge of Ultimate ADOM with a nearly-endless selection of build combinations
Read the Limb Loaning Agreement — Let nothing go to waste! Collect the severed body parts of your defeated foes and graft them onto your own body. As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one — especially when they’re attached to the same body!
Secret Menu Options — Players can combine more than 380 skills in 25 skill trees to create the ultimate dungeon-delving death dealer...but wait, there’s more! Ultimate ADOM provides extra options for the discerning warrior with a host of secret skills to add even more depth to the build varieties.
Multiple Methods for Magic Mastery — Swords are fun, but summoning demons, charming enemies, and flinging balls of fiery death is even better. With more than 80 spells available spread throughout several different schools of magic, aspiring sorcerers have their work cut out for them.
Keep Things Old School — Hardcore genre purists will be pleased to know that Ultimate ADOM can be played in classic ASCII format, and can even toggle between 3D mode and top-down view
Early Access Roadmap
Greetings, Adventurer!
We are proud to announce our Ultimate ADOM Early Access Roadmap! Check it out below to see what's bound to happen over the next months during Early Access.
